Various forms of apparatus are known in the prior art for advancing a string of tickets from a supply and for severing individual tickets and delivering them to a customer. Usually, such tickets are separated by a laterally extending line of weakness. One form of such apparatus incorporates a sprocket wheel having teeth adapted to engage notches or holes along the edge of the tickets. The sprocket is driven until the line of weakness connecting the leading ticket to the remaining tickets in the string is positioned in the path of movement of a cutter or breaker blade which is driven to sever the leading ticket from the remaining tickets in the string.
The ticket dispensing apparatus described above incorporates a number of disadvantages. First, the size of the tickets being dispensed cannot readily be changed unless the pitch or distance between successive feeding notches or holes for the new size ticket is an integral multiple of the original distance between feeding notches or holes. If such is not the case, then the feeding wheel must be changed. Moreover, ticket feeding apparatus of this type requires either that the string of tickets originally be formed with advancing perforations or holes or that the string be so perforated prior to use on the apparatus.
Attempts have been made in the prior art to overcome the difficulties of ticket delivery apparatus of the type described hereinabove. One attempt to overcome these difficulties is the use of friction rollers as a ticket advancing means in combination with means for sensing the leading edge of the ticket to stop the advance of the ticket with the line of weakness of material connecting the leading ticket to the remaining tickets in the string positioned in the path of a breaker blade or cutter which moves in a direction generally perpendicular to the direction of movement of the string of tickets. While such an arrangement permits of the ready adjustment of the apparatus to accommodate tickets of different sizes, which different sizes may vary only slightly from each other, it incorporates another defect. That is to say, the breaker blade must be carefully adjusted so as to strike the line of weakness or perforations. If for any reason, at the time of the separating operation, the line of weakness is not precisely positioned with reference to the edge of the breaker blade, the leading ticket will not be cut precisely along this line. Thus, on the next operation of the machine, the edge which is sensed is not truly the leading edge of the next ticket so that the error becomes cumulative.
One example of the first type of ticket delivery apparatus described hereinabove is illustrated in Verduin et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,089. Riddle et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,621,964, and Zandstra U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,958 are illustrative of the second form of ticket delivery apparatus described hereinabove.
I have invented a ticket vending head which overcomes the disadvantages of ticket dispensing apparatus of the prior art discussed hereinabove. My ticket vending head requires no change in parts to accommodate a change in ticket size. My vending head accommodates a wide range of ticket sizes with very small differences in ticket sizes. It does not require the provision of ticket advancing notches or holes in the tickets. My ticket vending head does not require critical relative positioning of parts. It will accommodate a considerable error in line of weakness to line of weakness spacing at the ends of a ticket. My ticket dispensing head avoids the accumulation of errors which may result in the use of apparatus of the prior art.